The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Presently there is a growing interest on the part of advertisers in providing targeted advertising to individuals. However, traditionally targeted advertising has been based primarily on the characteristics of the target audience. Important factors traditionally have been the gender of the audience that the advertiser is trying to reach, the age range of members of the targeted audience, and the education level of the targeted audience, just to name a few factors.
A limitation that has existed in delivering advertising content to consumers is the inability to time the delivery of the content at those times where the consumer is most likely to take advantage of an advertisement or, put differently, to act on an advertisement. This is particularly so when the consumer is travelling in a motor vehicle such as an automobile or truck and listening to content being broadcast from a radio station. In such a situation, the consumer, being in his/her vehicle, is potentially more likely to act on an advertisement that he/she learns about, for example a one-day sale at a retailer, than he/she might otherwise be if the consumer was at home. This is especially so if the user learns of the one-day sale while he/she is travelling in close proximity to the store where the sale is taking place. But advertising content is typically delivered without regard to the location of the user. For example, an advertisement may be delivered by a radio broadcast station for a given product or service, and the advertisement will reach all listeners within a relatively large geographic area (e.g., southeastern Michigan). But at the present time, there is no way to better target the placement of advertisements so that the advertisements are likely to reach consumers, such as listeners travelling in motor vehicles, at specific times when the listeners are most likely to act on an advertisement.
The challenge then becomes how to provide targeted advertisements or targeted content to consumers in a way that is highly timely and geographically targeted, and which maximizes the chance that the consumer will be able to act on the advertisement.